1. 4 H. 122 P. 2. 26 H. 166 P. 3. 40 H. 344 P. No. 1 80807 And He said, Thou canst not see my face; for there shall no man see God, and live. Exodus, 33:20. He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father. John 14:9. Gods word is full of mysterious truths which intimately concern us, and the arrangements of His Govt. in regard to us, are often past finding out. Sometimes the relations established between us are such as to run counter to the judgment and will of His imperfect creatures. We may safely declare, however, that there is not one of these established arrangements, or announced mysteries for which God has not the very wisest + best reasons. Now while, in His mercy, He allows us to investigate all such subjects, at the same time, for us to doubt the wisdom of any of Gods plans is criminal in the highest degree, whether we comprehend them or not. I. Among these truths announced, and 2 revealed is the fact that, God is invisible, yet ever near us. That this arrangement is not altogether in accord with unchanged human views, and unenlightened and with unchanged human views, and unenlightened and unsanctified human wishes, will appear manifest by a few [considerations] Facts. 1. There often involuntarily spring up in the minds of the just and virtuous, the earnest wish that God would burst suddenly upon the world in the personal grandeur of His wrath, and arrest the terrible evils of this disordered state of human Society. Such men look over the world as it is presented to view, in all its moral hideousness + deformity; men a wolf to man; Law + Justice trampled under foot; truth fallen in the street; and righteousness unable to enter; might crushing right; oppression with heel on the neck of the victim, and all the dire evils of a world under the rule of the Prince of darkness. At such times 3 the good man with feelings akin to Davids exclaims Rivers of waters run down mine eyes because they keep not thy law. It is time for thee to work, Lord, for they have made void thy Law. Then it would seem to such an one that no arrest can be [put] laid upon vice [??ime] short of the mighty God arising to shake terribly the earth; and the prayer almost bursts forth in Isaiahs words. Oh that thou wouldst rend the heavens, that thou wouldst come down that the mountains might flow down at thy presence, to make thy name known to thine adversaries, that the nations may tremble at thy presence. But the Heavens part not; the Lord remains in profound seclusion and retirement, as though He would give men full license to do evil. 2. Then come up thoughts crowding in the spirit of the troubled doubter, as he feels that his way is ledged up 4 and he painfully treads his dubious path amid shadows, clouds, and darkness, and he knows not what is truth, The Huxleys + Tyndalls, and Darwins, and Herbert Spencers, and John S. Mills and all that Class of Infidels have so beclouded his mind, that he is in darkness, and longs for light. To him it would seem a consummation devoutly to be wished that God would appear and in [a] voice of tenderness, and with eye of pity speak and scatter all his clouds. But God comes not to this doubting [child] seeker in this form. He hides Himself in the thick darkness, and bids the doubter resort to His word, or commends him to other sources of relief. He will not make His personal appearance; that is certain. 3. Yet often involuntary cries for God are uttered by the desponding child of God when, for a season, the sensible comforts of communion have ceased, and even to the upright there is darkness. So he wails in Jobs lament: Oh, that I knew where I might find Him! That I might come even to His seat!..... Behold I go forward but He is not there; and backward but I cannot perceive Him: On the left hand where He doth work, but I cannot 5 behold Him; He hideth Himself on the right hand that I cannot see Him: Now would he say, [if God] would that God wd only present Himself visibly, so that like a weary child in search of an absent mother I could fall into His arms and lull to everlasting rest my fears and scatter with the light of His count-all my darkeness. But God is not thus found by His sorrowing ones. He is the King, not only eternal, immortal, but also invisible. 4. Others of His children, at times, when devotion rises to its height and the soul takes its flight on wings of faith hope and love, as eagles soaring above the storms + clouds, find themselves longing for nearer embrace, and yearning for brighter and clearer manifestations of the God they love, can hardly rest content without the visible presence of that glorious Being. They feel that they cannot be satisfied with merely the vision of faith. They long to see the King in His beauty. 6 5. In a word in almost every thoughtful mind there arise reflections upon what seems a strange fact, that they are surrounded by a thousand evidences of His nearness, His universal presence, and yet His invisibility. In the tornado, + hurricane, [and] as well as the gentle breath of spring; in the flood and torrent, [and] as well as the calm of nature; in Lifes histories the joys and sorrows, the smiles and tears of life; in every breath, every pulse, every thought of my mind I find the irresistible proofs of the God of the Universe being at my side, above, around, beneath, within me, everywhere present and at all times, the same yesterday, today + forever, + yet, I cannot see Him! But no! God will not break through the awful seclusion of the Universe, the secresy [secrecy] and stillness of creation, He will not for a moment withdraw 7 the veil that hides Him from human sight, in order either to arrest crime; to clear away doubt; to comfort the desponding; to enhance devolution; or to satisfy curiosity Now one remark is very obvious and that is , that All these thoughts are vain. Humanity cannot see the Great God in unveiled glory, until all through, and all over its inner, + its outer constitution, that great change shall take place which will convert this corruptible into incorruption, and this mortal into immorality; until these bodies terrestrial shall become bodies celestial; until death shall be swallowed up in victory. Now in this fleshly state, to His purest and best, God says; Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see God and live. But here is another fact; for while In his natural, original, mental, moral, and spiritual constitution, man is a lofty and noble being; + Even 8 in his fallen estate, there are yet elements of greatness about him; a ruin, but a magnificent ruin; else Jesus Xr. the son of God wd not have joined Himself to humanity, + died to restore those ruins to their routine grandeur; [that] still there is something in the flesh; something in the element of animal life which he possesses in common with the lower order of animated creation, that render it impossible that the pure spiritual Being whom we know as God shd make Himself visible to mans naked eye in palpable tangible form. The diversity of the two natures the Divine and the human is too wide; the blaze of the Divine Glory would so dazzle; as (not merely to blind but) to destroy. The powers of human vision are so feeble as to be crushed by the sight, and death would be the result. It is however no small relief to this overwhelming truth that there are considerations abundantly compensatory drawn from surrounding circumstances in human life which show that the invisibleness of God is a most reasonable doctrine. And 10 [matter, in itself considered.] So we remark in general, that there are two things in nature; (1.) Spirit; and (2.) Matter. It is a fact that cannot be doubted, and what every body [will] should admit, that the spiritual cannot be perceived by the senses. You hear men talk, + there are many writing about materialized Spirit. But it is not true, in the first place, that even material agents exist which we cannot see, and yet which we know and believe do exist? Whoever saw electricity? I grant you that many have seen the lightnings flash, and have witnessed its deadly effects. But what you saw was nothing but the embodiment of the agent; the visible development of the invisible subtle mysteries fluid which pervades all matter. It is latent, + secret, + no one has ever seen it, because although matter, it is too refined, + attenuated to be subjected to the power of vision. Go further. Who 11 has ever seen gravitation? Yet if a man doubts that such a power exists in nature; he must be told that he gropes in darkness. This is that unseen, and invisible power which holds together the material Universe; controls the earth in its daily and annual motions + gives us day + night, and the varied seasons of the rolling year. But you cannot see it, or touch it; or take cognizance of it save by its effects. Go farther still. Who ever saw a thought? You have seen the expression of a thought, but that was only the body in which the thought was presented. The thought os invisible, it cannot be seen or touched. Can we see mind; sould; spirit? Millions of spiritual beings walk the earth, unseen, Both when we wake and when we sleep; God 12 teaches us that the [spirits] angels are all ministering spirits sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation; Guardian angels in airy flight watch round us by day and by night. But we have never seen them; we cannot see them; we shall never see them in the flesh. Besides all this; we daily associate with living beings, in whose society we delight and whose society charms us not because of the material body only which we see, and touch, but mainly and chiefly because they are congenial spirits; minds of kindred mould; sold that respond to our souls in the emotions and thoughts, and aspirations they originate + indulge. Yet those spirits, and minds and souls, with all their noble impulses, all their lofty aspirations and burning thoughts have never been seen; cannot be seen will never be 13 seen by the eye of flesh. Is it any wonder then, that when invisibility is a trait of the finite; when confessedly there are so many things we cannot see [many things] that are in existence, of a mere earthly nature, this same thing shd. be true of the infinite God? The works of God declare that He exists. But what is this to the sight of God Himself? Job eloquently + nobly describing Gods grandeur and glory in His visible works, concludes it all by exclaiming Lo these are parts of His ways; but how little a portion is heard of Him! [(2) It is at once a kind of modification of this principle, and, in some sort of a consolation for once confessed inability to see God with our natural eye, to reflect that we can see Him mentally.] III. I began by Saying that God has the very wisest and best 14 reasons for keeping Himself invisible. There is not any impossibility, nothing incredible in the idea that the great God could, if he chose, manifest Himself to comfort His own people, and to punish the wicked. Why then does He withhold such a revelation of Himself. The proper answer to this question is to be discovered in the nature, and Xter., of that human, present state of existence in which all men are now found. Our life on earth is of a twofold Xter. It is a state of trial. It is a state of training. The proposition that grows out of this fact is just this; If our present state of life be a state of trial then God must be invisible; and just so, if it be a state of training. God must be invisible. If God designed to try us or to train us, then it follows that he must not be seen by us; if He were visible then the trial + the training 15 would both be ended, or, rather, would never be begun. (1.) What then is meant by this life being a state of trial? It is that we are placed here, where truth and falsehood, good + evil, life + death are set before us, and where we are thrown on our own responsibility to choose the one, or the other, free to do either, liable to choose the wrong + to suffer the consequences, as free untrammeled agents. In such a state of things, motives to good and motives to evil are furnished but then they are not to be irresistible in either case, for if they are, then there is no trial about the matter; but the man is forced to act involuntarily. Truth must be clean enough to be found by man if he seek for it in earnest, and yet it must be hidden enough to escape the careless. There is no trial unless there be connected with it a possibility to fall. There is no trial unless there be a struggle and a conflict [after] for [the] success. This is precisely 16 our present state. We must abide the decision of our future destiny, we must conduct the business of our spiritual interests by the employment of our own powers in struggling for good, and searching for truth just with those advantages be means furnished us; it must be our own work by the assistance of those means which God has furnished us, or it is no state of trial. Virtue does not come to us in her own native glory, + take up her abode within us with such unmistakeable proofs that it is virtue as to preclude all effort on our part to obtain her. The obedience, demands of the sinner to Gods Law is not enforced by visible flashes of lightning or audible thundertones from Gods awful wrath-illumined presence. But in both cases, man is required to work out these great problems of conduct + destiny, without an easy assurance of the end, and yet with all the needful means leading to the end. It must be however, that [?] 17. all the light of reason + revelation, man may be blind and deaf, to the truths he ought to know; it must be that a man may contemn God, and ignore all His authority, if he choose so to do, or this is not a state of trial. For if man were not left to choose or refuse, he would not be a subject for Moral Govt. Suppose God shd. become visible; but of course, in that event, there could not be an unbeliever; no disobedient rebel; there would be no obedience through love, there wd be no such thing as a faith that works by love, as is now the case in the Xtian. The state of man would be a state of absolute compulsion; there wd neither be faith, nor infidelity; there wd be neither goodness, nor wickedness. The Xtian wd not gain his victory over doubt by the exercise of an intelligent faith; in fact there wd be no victories of faith at all all wd be the forced convictions of sense. The sinful rebel wd no longer wilfully pursue his course of wickedness; but his energies of wickedness wd be paralyzed in the dread pressure of the 18 mighty God of the Universe. The time has not yet come for God to cease to be invisible. It is coming, but in Gods own time. Now we are on trial, and God does not mean to interfere with this state of trial now going until the end shall come which He has set. 2. Another reason for Gods continuing to hide Himself from us us because this life is our training time. We are not ready to behold His face in righteousness we wd. not be satisfied, when we awake, with Gods likeness, simply because we are not yet prepared to enter into His presence. Not only are we here undergoing a process of trial for our future destiny but we are actually passing through a course of education for our eternal State. Now until that course of training is finished the sight of God in the full blaze of His Glory wd not only yield us no satisfaction, but wd be absolutely intolerable 19 intolerable to our unprepared moral perceptions. Take the following homely illustrations. The domestic animals by which man is attended the faithful dog knows his master. He recognizes his bodily person, among a thousand other persons. But does he know anything about His masters mind, his powers of thought and will and reason? Nothing. Why? Because the dog has no mind of his own, only instinct. But he never can on will know that nobler rational part of man until he becomes rational himself. He is not fitted for it. This is an extreme case because he never will be prepared to do this. But it illustrates the fact that only like natures can appreciate each other. Now take the case of a pupil sitting at the feet of the greatest Astronomer of the age. The pupil opens the volume wherein are collected the grandest scientific truths, and the results of the highest mathematical discoveries, and when he undertakes to 20 master them, his [master] teacher says to him, you are beyond your depth; all this is a mighty maze; a vast ocean which you cannot sound with your short line because you have not been trained; you have not studied those elements of science which lead to these ultimate truths, and until you have mastered them, + thus prepared your mind for the wider sweep + stronger grasp demanded these deeps of science will only dazzle + confound you. You must be trained. The child is in daily contact with his parent, + while his eye sees, him + his ear hears his voice; and he feels the warm embrace of a fathers love, there is no recognition on the part of that child of the lofty, and profound exercises of the fathers mind. He must undergo a training, and bide his time. Here is a Christian surrounded by a community of the degraded the sensual, the infidel, the outbreakingly wicked. It is not possible 21 possible that these vile specimens of a fallen race can conceive, comprehend, or for a moment appreciate the holy thoughts, the pure principles, and lofty motives of this man of spiritual mind. He occupies a different sphere, and before they can know him at all they must undergo a long process of training and preparation. These things being so in regard to inferior matters, true of the relations between man and other beings around him, we may now be prepared to embrace the truth as one easily comprehended, that God must be invisible from the very nature of the case, because we are not yet sufficiently trained to comprehend and enjoy a vision so divine. We need not fail now to understand why it is that, Without Holiness no man shall see the Lord; we know now the meaning of our Lords declaration; Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. 22 It would not reveal God to us in His true nature for Him to come before us visibly represented, with our unholy and sin sanctified natures. The vision would be a blank, a vague immensity, something so pure, so dazzling, so glorious that the vision of the soul in its unholiness, and of the heart in its impurity, would be extinguished, + blended, just as the natural eye is darkened and blinded by gazing into the blazing face of the noon day Sun. It is said that the eagle can gaze with unaverted + uninjured eye into the very lustre of the Sun. If so, it is because his eye is adapted to the effort + he is the type of what we shall be when renewed, regenerated, purified, sanctified, and transformed into Gods own image we shall be raised to the Heaven of His Love, and see Him as He is. Now we see thro a glass darkly; now, we cannot bear it; we are not sufficiently trained. Some day we hope to be. Beloved 23 now are we the Sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but [when] we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see Him as He is. So that we must be like God before He can become visible to us. This is one grand object then of our training; it is to make us partakers of the Divine nature, so that we may be able to behold the King in His beauty, and this is Heaven to see God in His unveiled beauty. To see Jesus in His glorified body. To see the Holy Spirit, in His Purity, Power and Love. The [Tri??e] Jehovah, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, One God; over all blessed forevermore! Be yet patient brethren! Faint you may be in the toilsome pilgrimage; weary you may be of the fierce conflict; but pursue still; the end is not yet. But it will come, and to some of us full soon. Be not weary in well doing for in due time ye shall reap if ye faint not. All our 24 good deeds merit nothing at the hand of God, for after all we can do shall have been done, we are but unprofitable servants. But God gives a gracious reward to all we do, and all is intimately connected with our gradual preparation + training for the eternal vision of God. So be comforted when you know that every kind act; every holy loving emotion toward God; every victory over the sin that doth so easily beset you; every sacrifice you make for the sake of doing good; every act of self-denial; every submission of your own will to the Will of God; is only training you for the glories of Heaven. Faiths eye is brightened; Faiths wing is strengthened; and Loves fervor is [kindled] made more ardent; Hopes light is [brightened] kindled anew; by every sweet hour of prayer + communion with God through Jesus Xr. And I wish you to understand that it is only by the diligent use of all these means, that you shall all or any of you be admitted to this blissful vision so divine. There is a time coming when we shall be admitted if faithful unto death. This is one way the only happy way of seeing God. But oh the impenitent shall see Him too! Every eye [?] those pierced him [?] + they shall call [?]